Volunteer with us!

Please join us at any of our weekend plantings from November through March. You can find details about each planting on our calendar. People of all ages are welcome, and no planting experience is needed. Our patient crew leaders will show you how to plant. Just come dressed for the weather and ready to have fun planting.

Current Volunteer Needs for March

Friday tree/tool/truck loaders. Help us prep for the next day's plantings at the Friends of Trees office, rain or shine, for two to three hours, depending upon our needs and your availability.

Office volunteers. Help us prep for weekend plantings by creating tree flags and tags, assembling crew materials, and organizing gloves, tools and vests. Wednesdays or Thursdays are best.

Saturday morning planting volunteers. No experience is necessary. Just show up at the planting site no later than 9 a.m. ready to get your hands dirty, rain or shine. Check our calendar for more information.

If you have a group of ten or more volunteers, please contact Greg Tudor or Andy Meeks in advance of the planting or use our online group form to register. You may be able to bicycle or take TriMet to our plantings.

Friends of Trees welcomes volunteers all year, in all parts of our work, from planning to planting. Learn more about these volunteer opportunities:

• Tree Planters
• Crew Leaders
• Neighborhood Coordinators
• Community Outreach Volunteers
• Interns
• Office Assistants
• Seasonal Volunteers
• Site Stewards
• Special Event Volunteers
• Summer Inspectors

To find out more, please contact Greg Tudor at 503-282-8846 ext. 12 or Andy Meeks at 503-282-8846 ext. 24.

Volunteer Opportunities

Tree planters help plant trees at weekend events between November and April. We welcome people of all ages and abilities. No previous experience is necessary. Our helpful crew leaders guide small groups of volunteers. Just find a planting on our calendar, dress for the weather, and join us!

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Crew leaders attend a training in November or January to learn how to plant trees and how to guide volunteers at planting events. During our planting season, between November and March, crew leaders guide a small group of planters at four weekend plantings. Each crew leader receives a Tree Team t-shirt and is invited to attend Friends of Trees leadership celebrations.

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Neighborhood coordinators attend a summer training to learn ways to encourage their neighbors to buy trees, tips for organizing their neighborhood’s annual planting, and guidance in how to use Friends of Trees’ online tree ordering system to track tree purchases. By becoming a neighborhood coordinator, you ensure that your neighborhood will have a planting, and your neighbors will be able to purchase low-cost, high-quality trees for their yards and planting strips.

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photo: Annaliese Moyer

Community Outreach Volunteers staff a table at an event and chat with people about Friends of Trees opportunities. We provide literature, banners, and news about upcoming events. This is an important way to encourage people to plant trees with us.

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Interns commit to a regular schedule, 5 to 25 hours a week for three months to a year. Current projects for interns include the following:

• Post yard signs in neighborhoods
• Distribute flyers to local campuses for volunteer recruitment
• Develop educational materials for school groups
• Enter tree route information in database
• Photograph plantings
• Register volunteers at plantings
• Translate Friends of Trees information into Spanish, Mandarin or Russian
• Weed, prune and clean at Friends of Trees
• Wash coffee mugs for planting events during planting season

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Office Assistants help with office projects from filing to entering information in our database to sorting T-shirts to making phone calls.

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The following Seasonal Volunteer positions are available at certain times of the year:

• Wear our tree costume and wave at people to raise awareness of Friends of Trees.
• Help with summer maintenance, invasive plant removal, and tree care.
• Tie and glue flagging tape to bamboo stakes to mark where native plants are to be planted.
• Mark our tools with different colors so we can keep them organized at planting events.
• Help staff members vacuum and wash our trucks.

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Site Stewards adopt a natural area site and organize plantings and maintenance events for the site.

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Special Event Volunteers help with preparation, registration, and follow-up tasks for events.

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Summer inspectors attend a spring training to learn how to check on the health of trees planted in the neighborhoods they’re assigned to visit. Being a summer inspector gives you a chance to meet your neighbors and to help them take care of their trees during the critical first summer after planting.

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